Children of the Cultural Revolution: Family Life and Political Behavior in Mao's China

Children of the Cultural Revolution refers to the Red Guard generation,
children who were in China's primary and secondary schools at the outset of the
Cultural Revolution in 1966. Many Western scholars have studied the Red
Guard generation.
1 I draw insights from their writings to develop new
understanding and a fresh perspective on family life and behavioral development
before and during the Cultural Revolution. I also seek to discover and analyze
the factors that influence political behavior in China in general.

To help readers better appreciate what I aim to achieve in this book, it is
necessary that I explain a few important concepts and my methodology.

The Cultural Revolution

The term, Cultural Revolution, is commonly used to refer to the 1966-1976
decade of relentless social upheaval in the People's Republic of China. In
essence, the Cultural Revolution was a result of the power struggle between Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter the CCP),
and Liu Shaoqi, President of the People's Republic of China. It arose from their
different concepts of culture and art, educational reforms, economic policies, the
nature of political institutions and, ultimately, what each saw as the proper road
to socialism in China.
2

Mao was angered by prevailing bourgeois attitudes in the sciences and
culture and by persistent inequality in income and prestige between mental and
manual labor, between rural and urban areas, and between workers and peasants.
What alarmed him most, however, was his belief that Liu Shaoqi and his
followers had formed a bourgeois dictatorship, controlling the masses in state
enterprises, public hospitals, schools, research institutes and other government
organizations.
3

In 1966 Mao plotted to oust Liu from the power circle. Liu, however, was
firmly supported by many CCP leaders and government officials. Mao thus
decided to dismantle the CCP system and the government hierarchy in order to
"purify" the bureaucracy. Making certain that the People's Liberation Army
(hereafter the PLA) endorsed his plan, Mao then called on the youth of China to
launch the Cultural Revolution. He declared that it was justifiable to rebel

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